Saturday, September 3, 2011

[ZESTCaste] No Lokpal, says Kancha Ilaiah

No Lokpal, says Kancha IlaiahTuesday, 30 August 2011 22:34 Written by kuffir

[ A Round Table India report]

August 30: At a public meeting at the Hyderabad Press Club today,Kancha Ilaiah emphasized that the Team Anna sponsored Jan Lokpal billwas a direct attack on representative democracy and the constitutionand it should be opposed vigorously. 'No Lokpal' should be theDalit-Bahujan demand, he said.

G.Shankar, General Secretary, Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Castes WelfareAssociation, questioned the rationale behind the proposal of theLokpal legislation, and analysed the many ways in which it could beemployed to target and victimise SC/ST employees in the government andvarious public sector undertakings. Pointing out that Dalits andAdivasis already form the overwhelming majority of employees ingovernment who face charges of graft, he added that the newlegislation could possibly aggravate the situation further.

It's Ekpal, not Lokpal

Expressing sharp criticism about the way in which Team Anna tried toimpose Jan Lokpal on the parliament; Bojja Tharakam cautioned theDalitbahujans that they need to prepare themselves to launch amovement to protect the constitution and representative democracy.

Bojja Tharakam said the intention behind the whole Hazare led movementagainst corruption was to install an 'Ekpal', a single supremeauthority that reigned over the parliament, the executive and thejudiciary, answerable to no one but itself. He said it was an oldploy, a much used tactic in Hindu history to invoke and invent anavatar, vest him with a divine aura and use that invention to servetheir narrow parochial interests.

He said the campaign to project Hazare as an ultra-clean new Gandhi, asuperhuman personality of impeachable integrity and honesty, was partof the plan to produce a new Vishnu, an Ekpal who would decimate theforces of corruption, which in the eyes of the Hindus means only SCs,STs, OBCs and Muslims.IMG_2471

He asked what exactly was wrong with the existing laws andinstitutions that such unreasonable new demands are being made. Hesaid that laws and regulations such as the Prevention of CorruptionAct, the CCA rules, and institutions such as the ACBs and Vigilancedepartments and the CBI etc are quite adequate to handle all kinds ofgraft and misconduct, so where was the need for a new legislation andframework.

He outlined the partisan application of anti-corruption law andmachinery until now: while at the level of the bureaucracy and in thePSUs, thousands of employees of Dalit, Adivasi and other marginalizedbackgrounds have become almost exclusive targets of investigations andinquiries, more often than not, on questionable grounds, politiciansof lower caste backgrounds weren't spared either. When A.Raja, theformer Telecom Minister, followed the same procedure in grantinglicenses to telecom companies as his predecessors, Dayanidhi Maran andArun Shourie, why was only he in jail, and not the other two?

Raja had made it very clear that he had kept the Prime MinisterManmohan Singh and the Finance Minister P.Chidambaram informed on allhis decisions, Tharakam pointed out, so why are the Prime Minister andChidambaram not being touched? Similarly, why was only Mayawati'sdecision to expand or widen the road from Delhi to Agra, known as theTaj Corridor, being questioned while similar decisions were taken bymany chief ministers and state governments across the country in therecent past?

In the Judiciary, he asked, why were only K.G. Balakrishnan andDinakaran being targeted when key members of Team Anna themselves, theBhushans, had raised questions about the integrity of 16 justices? Whywas Justice Anand spared when senior lawyer Ram Jethmalani hadproduced evidence that the judge had submitted a false birthcertificate to get his job?

He questioned the undemocratic, coercive methods employed by Team Annaand their contempt for the principle of representation: from thedrafting panel to the proposed Jan Lokpal, was there any place intheir vision for any Dalitbahujan representation? How can two personsfrom one family be chosen for the drafting panel? Why doesn't Hazarequestion that kind of nepotism, he asked. Doesn't he see all the plusharrangements made for his fast—from the pandal to the tents to food—and the funds that went into making all that possible, as corruption?

He raised some very fundamental questions about the probity of theself-appointed anti-corruption crusaders: when Dalits and othermarginalized groups find it so hard to mobilize even a few thousandrupees—for even the most basic expenses as hiring charges for thevenue, loudspeakers and lighting, for handbills-- to hold a publicmeeting and still attract large crowds but ultimately get only paltrymedia attention, how did Team Anna manage to find the resources forsuch lavish arrangements and bag the attention of hundreds of camerasand reporters, for 13 whole days?

'Who paid for the 24x13 media coverage of the Anna Hazare fast?' Isn'tthat corruption, he asked.

He commended Bahujan political leaders like Laloo Yadav and SharadYadav for upholding the idea of the 'supremacy of parliament', and itscredibility as the foremost legitimate public forum in the country. Hesaid meetings such as this should be held in every district, villageand town in the state and country, on the same subject('Caste-Corruption-Constitution') so that awareness about the issuesinvolved could be raised, and Dalitbahujans be prepared to protect theconstitution and their rights.

Have Dalits ever been treated with anything but corruption?

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Retired IAS officer, D.C.Rosaiah wanted to know if the Dalits in thecountry have ever been treated with anything but 'aviniiti'(immorality or corruption)? If there was any community that had alegitimate right to raise a banner against corruption in the country,it was the Dalits, he said.

He warned that the Dalits, Adivasis and after them the BackwardClasses and minorities would be the primary targets of the proposedJan Lokpal Bill.

Bharat Bhushan asked: what would the Dalits, the great majority ofwhom who earn less than Rs.100 a day, know about corruption? The onlyissue that's relevant for them is social justice, he emphasized.

'No Lokpal'

Prof.Kancha Ilaiah called upon all the Dalitbahujans to oppose JanLokpal in one voice. 'No Lokpal should be our demand', he said.

He said two recent events underlined the need for Dalitbahujans tobecome more aware of concerted assaults being planned on their rights.The first, the release of the film 'Aarakshan', was an attack on the'right to life' of the Dalitbahujans and the second, the Jan Lokpaltamasha, was a direct, more comprehensive attack on the constitutionand parliamentary democracy.

He said the first assault was being defended on the grounds of 'rightto expression' and the second was being hyped-up as a nation-widecrusade against corruption. He said the media had a big role to playin lending credibility and support to both arguments. He said thenational media features many 'intellectual thugs' on debates and talkshows to oppose Dalitbahujan points of view, and tries to presenthighly exaggerated accounts of upper caste led movements and crusades.

The familiar tactic of using slick camerawork to present 'tens ashundreds and hundreds as thousands and thousands as lakhs' was beingused by the media to once again project the India Against Corruption(IAC) sponsored Hazare agitation as a nationwide, people's movement.He said the media had perfected this art since the 2007 anti-Mandalagitation led by 'Youth For Equality', of which Kejriwal and KiranBedi were great sympathizers.

Apart from the fact that it was an attack on representative democracy,his opposition to the Hazare movement was based on very simplegrounds, he said: what was corruption for the upper castes wasnon-corruption for the Dalitbahujans, and what was corruption for theDalitbahujans was non-corruption for the upper castes.

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The RSS and Sangh parivar were also key promoters of the Hazaremovement, he felt. All the saffronites had come out in Gandhi topis tosupport the movement, he remarked, and if the BJP had the courage, itshould contest the next elections on the issue of Jan Lokpal andcorruption and see if it would win more than 25 seats across thecountry.

He said though the Dalitbahujan politicians had stood up against thebullying tactics of Team Anna, the masses too should gear themselvesup for a prolonged battle. No Lokpal should be the goal, or the Billshould be put to sleep in the same way as the Women's ReservationsBill, he said. If Team Anna wanted the Bill to be passed, hesuggested, they should contest the 2014 elections and try to convincethe people of its need, as is the usual democratic practice and nottry to dictate to parliament what it needs to do.

Brother Asifuddin Muhammad of the Islamic Academy of ComparativeReligion said the proposed Jan Lokpal had some fundamental loopholes.One major problem was with: who would select the Lokpal? The selectionprocess and committee proposed overruled or left no space forSC/ST/OBC and minorities representation, and was hence undemocraticbecause it also ignored the parliament. Next major problem was: towhom would the Lokpal be accountable?

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He said it was obvious that the Sangh parivar was supporting theHazare movement and this posed a threat to the minorities in thecountry. He said he was very glad that the Dalits and Muslims thoughtalike on this issue.